No, Maruti Suzuki Has Not Recently Launched a Mini Bus Priced at Rs 4.99 Lakh

Fact-Check | There is no evidence to prove that Maruti Suzuki has indeed made such an announcement.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An image of a bus inside what appears to be a showroom is doing the rounds on social media platforms with a claim that Maruti Suzuki has launched a mini bus in India, which is priced at Rs 4.99 lakh.

An X (formerly Twitter) handle named 'India & The World' shared the photo with a caption that said, "Maruti Suzuki Mini Bus launched in India at ₹4.99 Lakh (sic)."

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

The above post had gained over a million views on the platform. Archives of similar such claims could be found here, here, and here.

What's the truth?: Maruti Suzuki confirmed to Team WebQoof that the viral claim was incorrect and no such official information was available.

How did we find that out?: On going through the official website and social media accounts of Maruti Suzuki, we did not find any such announcement that talked about the launch of a new mini bus.

• The list of vehicles in the website showed hatchbacks, sedans, SUVs, vans, S-CNG, and tour cars.

The list of vehicles did not carry any mention of mini bus.

(Source: Maruti Suzuki/Screenshot)

• The starting price of a Maruti Suzuki van (closest to a mini bus classification) named 'Eeco' was around Rs 5,20,990.

Eeco's starting prices was around Rs 5,20,990.

(Source: Maruti Suzuki/Screenshot)

Maruti Suzuki clarifies: Team WebQoof reached out to the company on e-mail to further verify the authenticity of the viral claim.

"As of now there is no official information regarding any new product / introduction in mini bus. You may kindly note that we shall keep our customers updated with all the information on these products at relevant points of time and through official communication channels."

Team Maruti Suzuki

What about the viral image?: On passing the image through two detection tools namely — 'Undetectable AI' and 'WasitAI', we found that both of them showed conclusive results of the photo being an AI-generated one.

(Swipe right to view all results.)

The tool showed the image was likely created by AI.

The tool showed that the image was indeed created by AI.

Conclusion: It is evident that the claim about Maruti Suzuki introducing a new mini bus priced at Rs 4.99 lakh is false.

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